


If this is fate, count me out.

by TerresDeBrume



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen, Post-Series, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Arthur never had a clear picture of what the future would be, but he’s pretty sure he thought it involved a lot more time spent <em>having fun</em> with Merlin than his life actually does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If this is fate, count me out.

**Author's Note:**

>   So I started this shortly after _Merlin_ ended, because all the reincarnation fics are great and I like them a lot, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe not everything would be all sunshine whenever Arthur came back around.

The first time he comes back, he wakes up sputtering and spitting in a cold lake in the north of Scotland -later, Merlin tells him it’s the Loch Ness and really, Arthur, that’s terribly cliché of you.

_You could at least have come back from the same lake I left you in._

 

But Merlin hugs him and Arthur hugs back and they’re both laughing and sobbing and crying, and it’s kind of perfect in its own way, even if Merlin looks like an old man. It doesn’t take long until Merlin goes back to his youthful form and takes them back to his home… it’s a single-room place, like the hut Arthur remembers from their visits to Hunith, but that’s about where the comparison stops.

 

The furniture looks dainty, too thin and made of glass and shiny surfaces instead of the carved wood Arthur is accustomed to, everything bathed in brown and beige and white instead of the warm reds of Arthur’s castle, and when he turns to the wall there are strange paintings in straight frames, painted without a single brush stroke over exceedingly flat canvas.

 

“Did you paint these?” Arthur asks when he spots a portrait of a scantily-clad Gwaine hanging over an elongated seat.

“What?”

 

Merlin emerges from behind a huge, humming contraption of white metal with a plate and a bottle of wine in his hand, and then shrugs when he notices what Arthur is pointing at.

 

“Oh, that! I’m a photographer; I work for a magazine in London. Gwaine’s an underwear model. The job fits him… I mean he’s ridiculously good looking, so I asked if I could keep a copy. He’s going to want to meet you, by the way.”

 

Arthur is still trying to wrap his head around some of the words Merlin used, like photographer -is that a new word for wizard?- and underwear model -though that one he thinks he might understand, even if it’s not necessarily a pleasant thing- or a ‘London’. Merlin, on the other hand, doesn’t really look like the present situation is puzzling him, and when he pokes his head around his big metal closet, he asks:

 

“How do you fancy fish and chips? I haven’t gone grocery shopping in months.”

 

Arthur gapes and Merlin’s ears grow pink, his face flushed.

 

“Right,” he says with an air of contrition, “I forgot you don’t know about that. Sorry. It’ll get better, promise.”

 

It doesn’t.

 

**{ooo}**

 

As promised, Arthur meets Gwaine-the-underwear-model soon enough.

Merlin magics them into Gwaine’s apartment, which he shares with Percival, and Gwaine spends a good ten minutes swearing about his broken plate and spilled soup, while Merlin protests that it doesn’t matter since he’s already fixed it with magic -see, it’s all better.

(That’s not the _point,_ Merlin!)

 

Gwaine cooks them something he calls spaghetti, and Percival teaches Arthur how to use his fork to eat it while Merlin looks at them with amused eyes and says it’s funny watching them, it’s like seeing Gwaine and Percival with the child they haven’t adopted yet -Arthur chokes on his bolognaise.

 

A few weeks later and he’s arguing with Merlin about how to dress, how to speak, how to stand. About _you need a job, Arthur; I won’t have you sit around all day for the rest of your life!_ Merlin tries to turn it into a joke by saying Arthur did enough sitting down when he was a royal prat, but they both grow tired with the whole fish-out-of-the-water thing very quickly, and Arthur ends up taking lessons with Gwaine and Percival every time he gets the chance.

 

**{ooo}**

 

Three months in, Merlin comes into the flat with a kiss for Arthur and a broad grin on his lips: a friend of his is in town.

Arthur barely has time to remark Merlin rarely comes back with that kind of smile -or kiss, for that matter- anymore, before the warlock starts babbling about a pub or another and meeting a really, really old friend… Arthur doesn’t get it until Merlin says his friend is _I don’t know, twice my age?_ _Maybe thrice._ _I can’t remember. Anyway, he’s a pretty chill guy, you’ll love him._

 

The ‘pretty chill guy’ turns out to be a tall lad in impeccably tight-fitting black jeans and a dark green shirt with frills, which he wears under a cape, of all things. Arthur thought these weren’t supposed to be worn anymore, but Merlin doesn’t seem to care as he waves the man over.

They greet with a quick embrace and a firm handshake, and the man doesn’t let go of Merlin’s hand when he says:

 

“I was just telling Elladan we hadn’t seen much of you lately, did you get swallowed up in work?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Merlin says, and Arthur rolls his eyes because, okay, it was hard on Merlin but it was hard on him as well and they got through it, didn’t they?

 

He has a job now, and he pays his share of the flat, and he doesn’t see the point of rubbing this off in his face every other day. Merlin’s smile, however, is short lived:

 

“The Algerian war was a pain man; you’d think the French would have known not to use torture so soon after World War Two!”

 

The tall man nods, pointy ears catching the light, and sighs:

 

“No need to tell me about it,” he says with the tired air of someone who has seen it all, “I was in Vietnam with the red cross. Over eighteen millenniums and the efforts men put in destroying each others still impress me.”

 

Arthur feels more than a little green and goes to get some air.

 

It takes about two hours for Merlin to come get him back, and by that time he’s about ready to go home.

 

(In the end, he abandons Merlin to his friend -Legolas, he learned around one in the morning, when Merlin remembered to introduce him- and goes back to the flat for a ten-minute nap, a shower and a cold breakfast, which he eats on the bus. Later on the phone, Gwaine tells him this is exactly why he and Percy don’t go out with Merlin anymore.)

 

**{ooo}**

 

“Are the others around, too?”

 

It’s probably not the most intelligent question Arthur asked since he came back, and he should probably not have asked that while Merlin was in the middle of brewing some potion or another for a Doctor’s nightmares about whatever happened in his no doubt _literally distant_ past.

(In the six months since he came back, Arthur has learned not to ask about people’s age. Most of them look about the same age as Gwaine, but very few of Merlin’s friends are actually younger than a century.)

 

“Yes,” Merlin sighs after he finishes cleaning the orange liquid off the wall of their studio, “They are. Morgana refuses to talk to me since she realized she could have been like me, but at this point it’s probably better anyway. I’ll ask Morgause to give you her number if you want, we work together sometimes.”

 

Arthur wants to ask more questions, but Merlin is already fussing about the ingredients he needs to replace and slamming cupboard doors open and shut in quick successions, so Arthur sighs and gets out for a walk, desperately trying to convince himself it’s the blur of magically-enhanced furniture that drives him out and not the growing impression of a glass wall between him and his once manservant.

 

**{ooo}**

 

He rings Morgana against Morgause and Merlin’s advice, and ends up being screamed at for a straight hour.

It turns out he’s the only one who had to come back all grown up -something Gwaine and Percy carefully avoided mentioning. Merlin had to make most of them remember, but Morgana’s ties to him were strong enough that she had to suffer through years of dreams and nightmares before Merlin finally managed to explain it… and then she told him to get the fuck out of her life forever.

 

Arthur doesn’t know how to properly express his regrets, so he lets her yell at him as much as she needs and treats her to the most expensive lunch he can afford afterward.

They become rather good friends after that.

 

**{ooo}**

 

Arthur doesn’t see much of Merlin for the rest of the year.

 

In fact, Arthur doesn’t see much of Merlin ever at all.

 

They spend the rest of this life playing an odd game of tag, each occupying the studio in turns, with Arthur investing himself in work because anything else would feel like cheating, and Merlin being away for things that are entirely his.

 

Occasionally, they’ll come across each other.

Arthur will bring in a friend or two and wind up having to find an excuse as to why he never said anything about his roommate, trying to figure out how to best cover the fact that he’s not sure he knows who Merlin is -that he’s never known who Merlin was and now he doesn’t even know who he’s pretending to be anymore.

It’s not that they don’t like each other per se, because Merlin’s smile when they meet is still fond -a lot more so now that he doesn’t have to teach Arthur about modern life, actually- it’s just that apparently they don’t have much left to talk about.

 

Arthur tries his best not to think about it but then things like that keep happening and reminding him of all the years Merlin had to forget him and live without him, all the years Arthur was oblivious while Merlin had to go through peace and war and famine and economy brighter than a star.

It was difficult, back in Camelot, to ignore their difference in status, but it seems so little now compared to the loss and time and the weight of thousands of years wedged between the two of them, keeping them apart more efficiently than the strongest of spells.

 

Sometimes, Arthur comes back to the studio and finds Merlin there with his friends in more or less outdated costumes, and the nine hundred years old Doctor will be there and Merlin calls him a little boy.

On these days, Arthur tends to get hammered and try to forget Merlin exists altogether, until these days start happening too often for his health.

 

He’s not even sure Merlin notices when he moves out to Australia.

 

**{ooo}**

 

When Arthur comes back the second time around, he starts his third life by bumping into a little boy with big brown eyes, a hell of a grin, and green skin.

It’s the Loch Ness again.

  


Arthur lives for twenty years before he hears about Merlin, and even then it’s on the telly, when the News announces the existence of several species with amazing life spans. He thinks, maybe, he doesn’t imagine the way Merlin’s eyes set on _him_ through thousands of kilometers, but surprises himself by hoping he’s wrong. After all, omeone who keeps leaving doesn’t have a place among those who stay, not even if they keep coming back.

 

 

_If this is fate, count me out._


End file.
